SEND IN MICHELANGELO!
by netbus
Summary: When the brilliant Donatello turns in meager assignments for a particular field of study, a worried Splinter reluctantly contemplates getting him tutored by the less academically inclined Michelangelo. We can only imagine what might happen...


**SEND IN MICHELANGELO!**

**Summary:** When the brilliant Donatello turns in meager assignments for a particular field of study, a worried Splinter reluctantly contemplates getting him tutored by the less academically inclined Michelangelo. We can only imagine what might happen with Mikey as a teacher.

**Disclaimer:** Never said I owned anything so don't give me that look!

Splinter knew that each of his sons stood their own territory; Leonardo for his ninjitsu, Raphael for his personality, Michelangelo for his imagination and Donatello for his academia.

Splinter also knew that if he was to put his plan into action, he would be having one of the turtles treading on the territory of another. As a father, he couldn't bear the thought. As a teacher, he could see no other choice, as he prepared to put Plan Z into action.

Academically, Donatello was a child prodigy and everyone knew that. From Science to Philosophy, there was no discipline in which he wasn't miles ahead of his siblings and producing some rather Newtonian work. Except one…

Creative writing!

This was the one subject area in which Donatello would often return below Par assignments and when taken against all his other assignments, seemed rather appaling. This was not to say that he was extremely bland and uncreative. Donatello was extremely creative – when it came to working on one of his many inventions!

It was also not to say that his use of language was flawed. He had an excellent command of the English language and could argue about linguistic phenomena in an essay worthy of attention by a Linguistics Professor.

Something in his writing just seemed to be lacking. And it was clear that creative writing was not one of Donatello's most favourite subjects!

Splinter suspected that there could be several reasons for this. Firstly, Donatello was a hopelessly practical turtle. Although his understanding of theory was more sophisticated than anyone else, theory alone never held much value for him. It was the conversion of theory into practice that really excited Donatello and drove him in his studies. He seems to not have seen any very practical uses for the field of creative writing and as such had been less interested in the subject.

A second reason for Donatello's poor performance in creative writing, could be due to the nature of the field. In no other discipline was work produced subject to such intense subjective scrutiny. The lack of an objective measure meant that in the process of judgment, the reader was judging not only the product but also its producer; for in no other field were the two so intimately linked! Donatello seemed acutely aware of this, and his writings were most conservative in this respect.

A third aspect that contributed to Donatello's inability to embrace the noble art of creative writing, may have had something to do with Don's exhibition of a classic trait of genius: He was his own worst critic! Despite his academic prowess in all other fields of study, Donatello remained highly critical of himself; to the extent that Splinter often felt that he did not really need to mark Donatello's work because his own standards were set much higher than even Splinter's.

When it came to the creative arts however, Donatello's standards simply broke down. Because in the department of aesthetics, every observer of his work would inevitably form differentiated opinions. This multiplicity of standards here would lead Donatello to abandon his standards altogether.

Such characteristics lead Splinter to conclude that in the field of creative writing, Donatello's genius was greatly inhibited and he sought to correct that imbalance by bringing in a turtle whose mind seemed to work in the opposite direction.

Where Donatello was sophisticated, Michelangelo was amateurish. Where Donatello was mature, Michelangelo held a child-like innocence. Where Donatello often had high standards, Michelangelo often had almost no standards. It was not so much that Michelangelo didn't care about the quality of his work, it was just that he never worked to pre-conceived expectations. Michelangelo liked to reserve judgment until much later in the process, where as Donatello's standards always pre-existed his work.

Donatello's mind loved structure. He loved to know that everything had their own place. Because creative writing was often an open-ended endeavour, it was quite intimidating for Donatello's young mind. And where there was no structure, he would implement some for himself.

Michelangelo was the opposite. He disliked having any limitations placed on the workings of the mind; especially on the imagination. His ideas thrived when there were no rules, and the mind was allowed to wander where ever it pleased. Mikey was quite happy to just wait and see where his imagination would take him.

For Donatello, such free uses of the mind was dangerous. Above all, it lacked purpose. Donatello really didn't see the point in doing anything that didn't have much of a purpose. He knew that the mind was a very powerful thing and he felt that it needed to be tamed so that its energies can be focused.

Now imagine what would happen if these two forces should meet! Splinter knew that he was setting in motion something that was unprecedented and unpredictable, and braced himself for utter chaos!

However, having already tried getting Donatello to do "remedial" exercises and extra homework to brush up on the only academic subject that he wasn't excelling in – and going no where; Splinter felt that the chaos was worth the price for Donatello to stay above in his territory of academia.

Was this the right thing for Splinter as a father and as a teacher to do?

You be the judge.


End file.
